Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no money. Don't sue me; there's nothing to gain from it.

Author's Note: I'm not sure this ficlet has a point other than that I love Sylar/Elle. (And I just wish he would once mention her on the show. Or that Peter would mention Caitlin or Simone. Or Nathan that he has a family. I could go on.) Enjoy!

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Happy Place

Set some time after 03x23—1961, but no real spoilers for anything in Volume 4

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Cornered on the street, Matt Parkman knew that he had one chance to stop Sylar from killing him. He needed to find a dream, a scenario in Sylar's head from which Sylar would not want to immediately wake. He dug deep. Come on. Show me a happy place.

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Sylar knew exactly what was happening when he suddenly woke up in a bed after just trying to kill Parkman. It was a ridiculous attempt, because Sylar was stronger than that. He could get himself out of whatever nightmare Parkman had put him into.

He looked around, just to see what it was. Lying next to him was an apparently naked blonde woman, but he could not see her face. "Claire?"

The woman raised her head. He had guessed completely wrong. "Did you just call me Claire?" Elle asked.

That made a lot more sense than him being in bed with Claire. "No."

Elle shifted and lay across his chest. "Why did you just call me Claire?"

Sylar avoided her eyes. "I had a dream about her, and I was a little disoriented when I woke up."

"I don't know how I feel about you having dreams about barely legal cheerleaders," she said in a teasing tone. She moved her head down to kiss him.

He let her kiss him. He could feel her, more than just a normal dream. He pushed her away a little and said, "This isn't real," to remind himself of that fact.

Elle's eyes went wide, making her look so hurt and confused, but it only lasted for a moment. Then her eyes returned to their normal shape. "No, it's not. But if you fight it, you'll never see me again."

It had been easy to kill Elle and easy to move on. Sylar had very few moments of regret after it was all over. Until now. "Why should I get to see you? I killed you."

She nodded like he had made a very good point. "Out there. But it doesn't have to be like that in here. In your head, we can be anything that you want. You can have anything that you want."

What she was saying was not exactly tempting. Sylar could not live in some fantasy world because he would know that it was not real. "Parkman could be getting ready to kill me right now."

She seemed happy to hear that. "Then maybe we could be together forever."

"I don't believe in an afterlife, Elle. And even if I did, I wouldn't be ending up anywhere where I could be with you the way I... want to be with you." Sylar felt that it was dangerous to admit to himself that he wanted to be with her.

"Maybe Heaven and Hell are too narrow a concept. Maybe we make our own afterlife. What if it's just a long, wonderful dream where we get everything we ever wanted."

Sylar thought about telling her that he was not ready to die, but he imagined she had not been ready for it either. The fact that he stop himself meant that he was thinking of her as a real person, which was not good. It was time to start fighting the dream.

Elle lowered her head again. "Make love to me, Gabriel. Just one last time before you leave me."

She rolled over, pulling him on top of her. He knew that he was vulnerable every second he spent in this dream state, but when he was kissing her and holding her, it was difficult to care. "I can't. I can't stay here."

She held firmly to his shoulders. "If you leave, you'll just be killing me all over again."

He shook his head. "You're already dead. It doesn't matter what I do."

"This is your fantasy, Gabriel. Parkman didn't put this in your head. He just showed you what you already wanted."

Sylar knew that already, but it was more than that. Parkman showed him what he could not let himself want, a fantasy too painful to have. He realized there was no point in talking about this. Her job was to keep him there; that was what Parkman wanted. And she wasn't real. He could not make love to her, or even just have regular sex with her, but he moved in to kiss her one last time. He let the kiss linger for longer than he intended because he could not bring himself to break it off.

Finally he pulled away and set to the task of waking up. The second he could feel that it was working, Elle grabbed her forehead. "Oh, god, it hurts."

Blood started spilling through her fingers. Sylar had not expected that he would be literally killing her by waking up, but it was a nice touch. He pushed himself harder to rise out of the dream.

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Sylar woke up on the street, looking into the face of a concerned passer-by. Parkman was gone. As he rose to his feet, Sylar became more determined to kill him than ever.